30 Years of ARTC – Camp Wak-N-Hak 2002

This being our 30th anniversary, we thought we’d dip back into the past and recap some of our previous performances, triumphs and tragedies, in a series of posts. And don’t forget our Chronology! It’s not as detailed, but it really shows the growth of ARTC over the years. You can see all of the photos in their full size on our Flickr album!

In 2002 we were privileged to perform at Camp Wak-N-Hak, a summer camp for children with cystic fibrosis run by Camp Twin Lakes. This was a richly rewarding performance for us, and the kids really got into it. What did we perform? Well, that’s been lost to the sands of time, but we had a blast and that’s what’s really important.

Our appreciative audience at Camp Wak-N-Hak

Acoustically, this spacious basketball court was challenging with its high ceilings and hard walls and floor, but once this great audience got seated they soaked up the audio extremely well!

Thomas Fuller and David Benedict look on as Colin Butler addresses the microphone.

It’s a pretty good bet that we did an episode of Rory Rammer, Space Marshal.

Phil Carter and Colin Butler perform as the rest of the cast looks on.

The stage setup was extremely nice. We perform in a wide variety of venues and often don’t get to see the actual performance space until we arrive to set up. We’ve worked around some rather interesting challenges with other people’s sets, cramped stage space, low doorways leading onto the stage itself, and a lack of any discernable stage whatsoever. But Camp Wak-N-Hak had a quality, picturesque space that it was a pleasure to perform on!

William Alan Ritch and Joel Abbott on the technical side of the show.

One challenge we sometimes face is placement of the tech. A lot of theatres rely on monitors or booths that are off to the side. Some are so small that they don’t have a designated place for tech at all – they do everything with vocal projection and don’t have any sound cues at all. We do as much live Foley as we can in a show, but we also run recorded SFX when necessary and our experience is that it sounds weird when you play a recorded sound to go with an unamplified voice in a radio play setting. So we always just set up the whole shebang every time and being able to be centered on the stage really helps the techs get a good mix.

Lili at the Foley table.

Speaking of live Foley, here we see master Foley artist Lili showing off the tools of her trade. Foley is one of the most charismatic parts of radio theatre and we love to showcase it. We were lucky to be able to have the table up a little closer to the front for this show. Foley is awesome to see, but the space they take up and the sensitivity of the microphones we use usually make placement a bit of a strategic decision.

Founded in 1984, ATLANTA RADIO THEATRE COMPANY is an Atlanta, GA based non-profit promoting audio drama in all its forms and offering learning opportunities in voice acting, audio production, marketing, live sound, and other aspects of dramatic audio.